INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology

Ericsson ’ s Next Generation Wireless connectivity enables safer mining .

Newmont is the world ’ s leading gold company and a producer of copper , zinc , lead and silver .

In February last year Newmont announced a trial of 5G in partnership with Ericsson and Telstra Purple at its Cadia mine – one of the largest underground gold and copper mines in the world .

Using Ericsson Private 5G , Newmont was able to to achieve upload speeds of around 90Mbps along access drives and declines throughout the underground complex , and 150Mbps upload and 500Mbps download on all-important extraction drives .

The connections underground were found to be persistent and highly dependable , resolving historic limitations experienced with wi-fi and providing the consistent performance essential for remote control and autonomous mining systems .

Newmont Chief Safety and Sustainability Officer , Suzy Retallack said : “ The trial results show the extraordinary potential of 5G to improve safety , increase the number of machines that can be operated on a single network and boost production efficiencies in underground mining .”

Before the trial , Cadia was limited to upload speeds of 20 – 30 megabits per second ( Mbps ) using wi-fi to operate autonomous equipment such as ore loaders and remote-controlled mining machines .

Newmont will now use 5G to roll out more autonomous fleet like drill rigs , graders and auto haul trucks as part of future mining operations .

These wi-fi connections were unreliable and unpredictable when under load . There was insufficient capacity to operate the required number of machines in the one area at the same time , particularly with the amount of video upload involved and automation safety stops were regularly falsely triggered due to network packet loss .

Head of Private Cellular Networks from Ericsson , Manish Tiwari said : “ 5G is enabling rapid global transformation of industry , supporting digitalisation and movement towards automated , more efficient , and safer operations across a number of sectors .”

“ Ericsson is proud to be partnering with Newmont on demonstrating the potential of 5G to the global mining sector ,” Tiwari said .

Trialling 5G New Radio ( NR ) technologies on the surface at Cadia as part of the same initiative also demonstrated that new 5G innovations such as 64T64R Massive MIMO , beamforming and beam-steering provided a leap forward in available throughputs at the extended distances found in surface operations .

Following support for the Cadia 5G trial from the Australian Communications and Media Authority ( ACMA ), Newmont has now applied to ACMA for Area Wide Licenses to extend and embed Newmont ’ s use of 5G technology across its Australian operations .

Newmont is now planning to expand the use of 5G networks across its global network of Tier 1 underground gold-copper mines .

Newmont ’ s world-class portfolio of assets , prospects and talent is anchored in favorable mining jurisdictions in Australia , Africa , Latin America and Caribbean , North America and Papua New Guinea . p

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